


Finding the Words

by sanctuary_for_all



Series: The Spider and the Hawk [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feels, First Time, I just really needed this, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:49:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1498966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You really want to know?" She could feel the burn of anger underneath the words. After she'd fought so hard to get him back, it seemed especially cruel to make her sacrifice him like this. "You really want to hear about what Loki did to make me owe him blood? Fine."</p><p>She inhaled shakily. "He took you."</p><p>***Postscript to "The Avengers"***</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding the Words

**Author's Note:**

> Once I was almost certain that Natasha and Clint were together (that arrow necklace in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" - sigh) I had to figure out when they'd crossed that particular line. As far as I could tell, right after "The Avengers" was the most likely spot.

Clint pulled onto the interstate rather than head back to the SHIELD offices. He’d waited for Natasha to protest, or at least make a joke about men and directions, but she just settled back into her seat with a small smile as if this was what she’d expected him to do the whole time.

At the first rest stop, they disabled all of the tracking mechanisms in the SHIELD vehicle. Clint knew Fury could find them both if he needed them, but they weren’t about to draw the man a map.

Natasha shimmied out from underneath the car and popped back to her feet, curls bouncing like the little kid she’d never really gotten the chance to be. “We should be good to go as soon as you’re done.”

Clint bent back down to his work, pretending he hadn’t been looking. “In a sec.” This would have been easier with a knife, but the thought of holding one again made him feel sick. He could still see the blade less than an inch from the soft spot underneath Natasha’s jaw, feel the strain in his own arm as he tried to push it upward through her skull.

He closed his eyes, tasting bile.

“Clint.” It was Natasha’s voice, low and urgent and suddenly much, much closer to him. He could feel her hand curve lightly over his shoulder, letting him know she was there but not firm enough to be considered restrictive in any way. “I told you not to do this.”

He opened his eyes, eyes still on the sensor rather than her. “Yeah, well, I’ve never been very good at listening to people.” He pried it off with a last burst of effort, moving away from her touch to drop it on the ground and smash it under his foot.

Clint could feel Natasha looking at him. He didn’t dare meet her eyes. Finally, she sighed. “If you’re going to brood like this the entire time, we might as well cut to the chase.”

The fond exasperation in her voice was awful and wonderful, all in the same moment. “Bar crawling?”

“Though I choose.” She nudged his arm, then walked back around to the passenger side of the car. Only then did he look up, and when he met her eyes she shot him an impish smirk. “You have terrible taste.”

“Not all of us want to be at constant risk of death when we drink.” Clint’s part of the joke slipped out without any effort, leaving his real attention focused on simply watching her. He’d long ago stopped trying to find words for what she meant to him, knowing that once he did he’d have to face things that would change whatever this was between them.

He’d betrayed her to Loki, tried to kill her, and she’d still come for him. She’d still come _with_ him, on whatever the hell he thought he was doing with this little road trip.

She shouldn’t have to. Surely the debt was paid by now.

Clint cleared his throat. “You know you don’t owe me anymore, right?” He tried hard to make his voice normal, though he suspected he was failing miserably. “Not that you ever did, but even you have to admit that this evens out whatever red you thought was left in your ledger. There’s nothing making you come with me.”

Natasha leaned over to look at him through the driver’s side window, the expression on her face unreadable even to him. “Get in the car, Barton,” she said finally, the words as much an order as anything she’d ever said in a combat situation.

He went.

000

Natasha knew better than anyone that there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to chase away certain nightmares. So when she opened her eyes in the darkness of the seedy little motel they’d found for the night, the one where the manager had been astonished to hear them ask for twin beds, she wasn’t surprised to discover that Clint wasn’t in the room anymore.

Sitting up, she tried to decide whether it would be better to go after him or leave him to it. People worked through trauma in different ways, and she knew better than anyone how useless talking was in moments like this. Natasha knew part of the reason he’d left New York was to make sure he was out of reach when SHIELD finally remembered to sic a psychologist on him, which is exactly what she would have done in his place.

But … she could almost feel the pain he was in, touch it like the edge of a shattered mirror, and it made her bleed no matter how much he tried to protect her from it. Besides, she had her own nightmares to tend, and letting Clint out of her sight would do nothing to ease any of them. Loki had been taken back to Asgard, yes, but there was nothing that said they’d rounded up all his men. Any who had escaped were likely still mind-controlled, and for all she knew they’d been implanted with a trigger to take care of any who had strayed from the fold.

Far worse was the possibility that, at the moment, Clint might just let them.

Natasha slid her boots back on, checking to make sure that the car was still parked outside. Then she looked up at the waterstained ceiling, sighed, and went outside to hunt for the ice machine. It was broken – obviously – but she was too bruised and tired right now to want to do things the hard way.

A moment later, she was on the roof. Clint was right where she thought he’d be, perched on the high end of the slight slope and staring out over the industrial wasteland surrounding them. Quietly, she walked over and sat down next to him, legs tucked up like his so their presence would be slightly less obvious.

He glanced over at her, the corner of his mouth curving upward into something that wasn’t actually a smile. “Think the next one will work?”

She laid a hand against his back, wishing she was capable of the kinder lies. “No.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice rough. “It can’t even begin to be enough, but I am so _damn_ sorry.”

Ignoring the danger of it, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “You know I know that better than anyone.”

His muscles were tense as steel under her touch. “Everything I did, all the blood I have on my hands, and you know the nightmare my subconscious kept throwing at me all night?” Bitterness sliced through each word. “What would have happened if you hadn’t bitten me.”

Slowly, she lifted her head. “I don’t understand.”

Clint shifted away from her, scrubbing a hand across his face. “You could kick my ass in a fight, but I’ve got more brute arm strength than you do. If you hadn’t bitten me, the knife would have gone through.” He let out a shaky breath. “In the nightmare, I get hit in the head some other way and wake up anyway. After. And I _remember_.” 

Natasha curled her fingers into a fist, fighting the urge to reach out for him. As much as she wanted to, needed to, it wouldn’t help him. “You’re the one who gave me a 20 minute rant after that movie about how firing an arrow in close combat is about the stupidest thing you could do in a fight. And yet you did when you fought with me. Twice.”

He opened his eyes, brow lowered when he looked at her. “What are you saying?”

“That you fought it, as much as you could. The knife was the only time you got close.”

Clint’s jaw tightened. “And that would have been a hell of a comfort if I’d stabbed you to death, wouldn’t it?”

Frustration welled up, giving her words bite.  “Is making yourself bleed really the only way you’ll find peace with this? Because if so, let’s find a spot right now and I will _happily_ beat you bloody.”

He hesitated, as if seriously considering it, then scrubbed his hand over his face again. “I’m sorry.” He sounded raw now, the words coming from the broken place inside him. “Why don’t you hate me?”

Her hand moved of its own violation, curving around the back of his neck. “Other than your taste in music, I haven’t found anything suitably wrong with you.”

“Tash.” The softness in his voice was the same as it had been in the tiny interrogation room on the helicarrier. It was her only warning. “Anything Loki said to you, anything he did to you, was my fault.” The bitterness in his voice was gone, the guilt and grief leaving no room for it. “I gave him everything on you, which means that I’m the one who really compromised you. And there is nothing I will ever be able to do to make up for that.”

Her breath caught, fingers tightening against his skin. "How will knowing help anything?" she asked softly.

His shoulders lifted just a fraction, helpless. "It can't be any worse than what I've imagined."

She swallowed, feeling suddenly unsteady as she pushed herself to her feet. Clint flinched, as if he wasn't at all surprised at the way she was abandoning him, and Natasha pressed her lips together to hold the words back. Not yet. If she was going to do this, she needed distance.

Natasha took a few steps back, her exit route at her back. He turned around to look at her, expression closed and shoulders set as he braced himself for whatever she was about to say.

"You really want to know?" She could feel the burn of anger underneath the words. After she'd fought so hard to get him back, it seemed especially cruel to make her sacrifice him like this. "You really want to hear about what Loki did to make me owe him blood? Fine."

She could see the sudden awareness in Clint's eyes, as if he'd only now realized that it was fear chasing her heels rather than revulsion. "Tash...."

Natasha inhaled shakily. "He took you."

Then she turned, escaping before she could see the look on his face.

000

For a second, Clint couldn't move. His brain was frozen, refusing to believe that he'd heard the words correctly, that he wasn't caught up in some dream that was going to turn into a nightmare any second now.  There was no way something like this could happen to him. Not now.

Then Natasha slipped from view, her jump off the roof followed by the rapid sound of boot heels against asphalt, and Clint's instincts overrode his useless brain and kicked him into gear. He was off the roof and after her in an instant, following her across the parking lot. Even escaping, she'd refused to run.

When he caught her arm, she whipped around to glare at him. "Don't you dare say something nice right now, Barton, or I swear I'll—" She slipped into Russian for the rest of the threat, something long and involved about his balls, a potato peeler and trained monkeys, but Clint's heart was pounding too loudly in his ears for him to be able to hear her clearly.

He stared down into her storm gray eyes, feeling less steady than he did balanced on the ledge of a 60-story building. "Tash." It was barely a sound – he was having real trouble breathing at this point – but the soft word was enough to silence her. "That's what he did to you. He..." Clint swallowed, still not quite able to believe it. "He took me."

Natasha's expression shut down, but she couldn't get the door closed quite as tightly as usual. Her eyes were raw. "You did compromise me." There was a rasp underneath the words. "But it happened long before Loki showed up."

Their gazes were still locked. The sensible thing to do, the safe thing, would be to let her go and give them both enough time to pack all this back away into whatever corner of their brains they'd been keeping it this long. It would give them the distance they needed to see all this clearly, and if they were lucky they might even be able to get back to where they'd been before. They were both damn good at pretending.

But then, she'd always been the one person he didn't have to pretend with.

Clint forced some air into his lungs. "I really need you not to punch me right now."

He saw her eyes widen as he bent down to kiss her, lips moving schoolboy gentle against hers. Natasha's mouth opened on a sigh, leaning in close as she pulled him towards her, and he slid his arms around her and held on for dear life.

When they broke apart, it was only far enough to stare at each other. "This is a really bad idea," Natasha whispered.

Clint nodded. "Absolutely."

The word had barely left his mouth before they were kissing again, tugging each other blindly back towards the motel room.

000

Natasha's first conscious thought was of the warmth pressed up against her back, the steady rhythm of breath against her neck. Her internal clock suggested that dawn had come and gone some time ago, but for the first time in a very long time it had entirely failed to wake her up.

She smiled a little. Clearly, her instincts approved.

Opening her eyes, she shifted around carefully enough not to wake Clint. This was him genuinely relaxed, rather than the cocky mask he sometimes wore in the middle of a fight, and though she'd seen it before it was never often enough. She lightly grazed the tip of a finger over his brow, as if smoothing away the lines she was afraid would reappear as soon as he regained consciousness.

When the corner of his mouth curved upward, she realized he hadn't been sleeping at all. "Do you have a whole face-stroking thing I never knew about?" he murmured. "Because if so, I approve wholeheartedly."

Amused, she let her fingers fan upward and around the side of his face. "Maybe."

He opened his eyes, expression turning oddly fragile for a moment. "So this isn't the part where you tell me we can't do this again?"

She went still. "Do you want it to be?"

He kissed her in response, fingers tightening on her hip as if he was afraid she would slip out of his arms. Natasha was far from what anyone sane would consider a romantic, but in that moment she could have sworn Clint could communicate without words. More, that she could understand all of it.

When they broke apart, she slid her hand down so that it was splayed out over his heart. "I'm already compromised," she said softly. "Pretending I'm not won't change anything."

Tenderly, he brushed a curl away from her forehead. "Same with me," he murmured.

Natasha pressed a kiss against his jaw. "Then I'm not going to say it," she whispered against his skin, her throat tightening with more emotion than was at all safe. "Whatever this is, I want it."

He nuzzled his cheek against hers, arm sliding around her back to pull her closer. "Good."

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my original short fiction on my [blog](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)!


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